


Sorrow and Joy

by Amethyst97Skye



Series: Dragon Age One-Shots [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Comics), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: Devastation always followed in her wake. Now she must piece her shattered soul back together. It is easier said than done.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A sudden burst of inspiration created this one-shot. What do you think?

She did not give them a name, so they invented one for her.

As far as the rest of Thedas was concerned, the Herald of Andraste was none other than Evelyn Trevelyan, the youngest daughter of the third most powerful family in the Free Marches, a pious and prestigious member of the Templar Order.

Given her alarmingly high resistance to magic, she was certainly of noble birth, and Josephine had quickly dismissed their concerns of mixed ancestry; only a full-blooded Dwarf could boast of a resistance that matched the Herald.

Cullen had agreed to train her, and she proved to be a faster learner. Embolden, Cassandra – to everyone’s great surprise – took on Josephine’s job of educating the woman in Circle and Chantry politics. It should not have surprised them that she was a quick study.

Yet, no matter how hard they tried, she refused to talk.

To them, at least.

The inhabitants of Haven had done nothing but sing her praises since she woke. Adan, himself, had attested to the fact she was a skilled alchemist. The raw recruits favoured her training methods to Cullen’s, and he had been quick to adopt her more popular techniques, and even quicker to recommend them to Cassandra. Josephine had all but collapsed upon learning the woman had been running errands with the elves, though this proved to be an astoundingly effective on inter-racial relations.

The Herald, it seemed, was taking no prisoners.

Not even Leliana was free from her clutches.

She woke one dawn, three weeks after the Herald officially joined the Inquisition, and found a small hut in place of her command tent.

“ _Why?_ ” was all she could ask, never expecting an answer.

Their relationship existed in a realm separate from the rest of the Herald’s Inner Circle. At times, she feared it lay within the gates of the Black City itself. First, they were prisoner and interrogator. Then, they were unwilling allies with a common enemy. Leliana did not know what there were now, or what they would become, and that concerned her more than a thousand words, in a thousand tongues, could ever express.

“I miss my sister,” was all she said and, the second she was gone, Leliana scrambled for a quill, ink and parchment to write the words down.

_I miss my sister._

Leliana knew nothing of the joys and burdens siblings placed on one's shoulders, or in their hearts. It was by the light of her new hearth, fenced by a simplistic iron grate, that she asked the first of her questions.

“What was her name?”

The Herald’s face was dry, but Leliana could see the tears in her eyes, and the self-loathing in her sad, sombre smile.

“I’ve forgotten,” she whispered, as if the very thought of the faceless, nameless woman threatened to strangle her.

Why she stayed, Leliana did not know, but she waited long enough to hear her reply.

“I cannot replace – I would never think, never _dream_ , of replacing her! But I could, if you would permit me…”

_To do what?_

What could she offer the woman who had lost... everything?

She caught the Herald nodding; her smile was softer, and her eyes were still impossibly distant, but they regarded Leliana with warmth she had not received in years.

“One for sorrow,” she said, “and two… for joy.”

“Two of what?” Leliana asked, on instinct.

She kicked herself later, before she prayed to the Maker, expressing her gratitude that, in some small way, they had both been given a second chance.

“ _Nightingales_ ,” the Herald whispered.

Something threaten to strangle her, but it was not fear.

Leliana had her agents scour the village for crows that night, but there was not a murder to be found.


End file.
